The Redemption of Althalus. David Eddings

      ‘How did you know that?’

      ‘He didn’t once ask me what line I was in. That’s the first question any merchant asks. No merchant wants a competitor right across the street. Should we get rid of him? Eliar and I could kill him right now.’

      ‘No. You two aren’t the ones who are supposed to deal with Khnom. Just be careful around him, that’s all.’

      ‘Where do we go now?’ Eliar asked.

      ‘There’s a merchant community over by the east wall,’ Althalus replied. ‘We’ll set up camp there and start looking for the one we want first thing in the morning.’

      ‘Could you make me some soap?’ Eliar asked as they led their horses off down the rubble-strewn street.

      ‘Probably. Why?’

      ‘Emmy wants me to take a bath. Is that the first thing that pops into every woman’s mind? Every time I’d visit my mother back home, those were usually the first words that came out of her mouth.’

      ‘You don’t like bathing, I take it?’

      ‘Oh, I’ll bathe if it really gets necessary, but once a week’s usually enough, isn’t it? Unless you’ve been cleaning the stables, of course.’

      ‘Emmy’s got a very sharp nose, Eliar. Let’s neither of us go out of our way to offend her.’

      ‘You too, Althalus,’ Emmy’s voice murmured.

      ‘I don’t need a bath, Em,’ he silently protested.

      ‘You’re wrong. You definitely need a bath. You’ve been riding for several weeks now, and you’ve got a very horsey fragrance about you. Bathe. Soon. Please.’

      They started out early the following morning, and after a few awkward starts Eliar became more proficient. His open, boyish face helped quite a bit as he hopefully approached each hooded priest with his question. Most of the priests, Althalus noticed, refused to come right out and admit that they couldn’t read the alien script carved into the Knife-blade Eliar showed them. Their usual response was a brusque, ‘I’m too busy for that kind of nonsense.’ Several they encountered, however, offered to translate – for a price. One hollow-eyed fanatic launched a blistering denunciation, declaring that any script that he couldn’t read was obviously the handwriting of the devil himself.

      Althalus and Eliar left him in the middle of the street still preaching to nobody in particular.

      ‘Here comes another one,’ Eliar said quietly. ‘Maybe we can start making wagers about what they’ll say when I show them the Knife. This one looks like an “I’m too busy” sort of fellow to me.’

      ‘I’d put him in the “I’ll have to charge you for a reading” crowd,’ Althalus replied, grinning.

      ‘What gives him away?’

      ‘He’s cock-eyed. He’s got one eye on the sky watching for Deiwos and the other on the ground looking for a penny that somebody might have dropped.’

      ‘I just hope he’s not like the last one. The next one who calls my Knife an instrument of the devil is going to get my fist in his face.’

      The priest approaching them up the empty street had a gaunt, hungry look about him, and his disconnected eyes and wild hair gave him the appearance of a lunatic. His shabby brown robe was filthy, and there was a powerful odor about him.

      ‘Excuse me, your worship,’ Eliar said politely, going up to the cock-eyed holy man. ‘I just bought this Knife and it seems to have some kind of writing on the blade. I never got around to learning how to read, so I can’t tell what it says. Could you help me out?’

      ‘Let me see it,’ the priest growled in a harsh, rasping voice.

      Eliar held out his laurel-leaf dagger.

      The sudden scream was shockingly loud, echoing from the ruined walls of nearby buildings. The ragged priest stumbled back, covering his eyes with his hands and screaming as if he’d just been dipped in boiling pitch.

      ‘I hope you won’t take this personally, your worship,’ Eliar said, driving the Knife directly into the shrieking priest’s chest.

      The scream cut off abruptly, and the dead man collapsed with not so much as a twitch.

      Althalus spun, his eyes searching every vacant window and doorway. As luck had it, they were alone. ‘Get him out of sight!’ he barked at Eliar. ‘Hurry!’

      Eliar quickly put the Knife away, seized the fellow’s wrists and dragged him behind a partially collapsed wall. ‘Did anybody see us?’ he asked just a bit breathlessly.

      ‘I don’t think so,’ Althalus replied. ‘Come here and keep watch. I want to search the body.’

      ‘What for?’ Eliar stood up. His hands were trembling slightly.

      ‘Calm down,’ Althalus told him. ‘Get a grip on yourself.’

      ‘I’m all right, Althalus,’ Eliar said. ‘It’s just that he startled me when he started screaming like that.’

      ‘Why did you apologize before you killed him?’

      ‘Just trying to be polite, I guess. Mother taught me to mind my manners. You know how mothers are.’

      ‘Watch the street. Let me know if somebody happens along.’ Althalus roughly searched the body, not really knowing what he might be looking for, but the dead man’s pockets had absolutely nothing in them. He kicked a bit of rubble over the body, and then he came back out into the street.

      ‘Did you find anything?’ Eliar asked. His voice still sounded a little excited.

      ‘Calm down,’ Althalus told him. ‘If you’re going to do this, do it right. People who are all worked up make mistakes.’

      Then a black-robed priest came striding up the rubble-littered street toward them. He was a fairly young man, and his hair was a rich auburn color. His dark eyes were flashing indignantly. ‘I saw what you just did!’ he said. ‘You men are murderers!’

      ‘Shouldn’t you get a few details before you start making accusations like that?’ Althalus said calmly.

      ‘You killed him in cold blood!’

      ‘My blood wasn’t particularly cold,’ Althalus said. ‘Was yours, Eliar?’

      ‘Not really,’ Eliar replied.

      ‘The man was not a priest. Reverend Sir,’ Althalus told their accuser. ‘Quite the opposite – unless Daeva’s set up a priesthood of his own here lately.’

      ‘Daeva!’ the youthful priest gasped. ‘How did you know that name?’

      ‘Is it supposed to be a secret?’ Althalus asked mildly.

      ‘That information is not supposed to be in the hands of the general population. Ordinary people aren’t equipped to deal with it.’

      ‘Ordinary people are probably much wiser than you think they are, Reverend,’ Althalus told him. ‘Every family has a few black sheep. There’s nothing really unusual about it. Deiwos and Dweia aren’t really happy that their brother went astray, but it wasn’t really their fault.’

      ‘You’re a priest, aren’t you?’

      ‘You make it sound almost like an accusation,’ Althalus said, smiling slightly. ‘Eliar and I sort of work for Deiwos, but I wouldn’t go quite so far as to call us priests. The man Eliar just put to sleep was one of the people who work for Daeva. As soon as we discovered that, we killed him. There’s a war in the works right now, Reverend. Eliar and I are soldiers, and we’re going to fight that war.’

      ‘I’m a soldier of Deiwos, too,’ the priest asserted.

      ‘That hasn’t